Metal Hellsinger Review: We slaughter demons to the beat of the music

While Rocksmith + is about to try to reinvigorate the market for ‘canonical’ rhytm games with its innovative subscription service, there are also software houses smaller than those of Ubisoft, who want to try a completely different approach to the genre. We refer to those games whose rhythm component represents an addition to a gameplay based on different playful genres (think for example of shooters). After having analyzed Soundfall, which combines twin stick shooter and rhythm game, let’s go back to talk to you once again about the interesting Metal Hellsinger, which combines the musical component with that of a hellish arcade-style first-person shooter based on lead, metal and demons. Dress lightly, because a long journey into the underworld awaits us.

Nobody can put the Unknown in a corner

Without getting too lost in chatter, Metal Hellsinger immediately puts us in the shoes of the beautiful Unknowna winged demon with red skin whose voice has been stolen: therefore we will accompany her in her crossing of the underworld with the aim of tracking down the Judgea dangerous creature who reigns over all demons and intends to send his army against us in order to stop us.

This is how a frantic journey into hellish places begins, which will call us to slaughter hordes of monsters to the sound of metal. The title of The Outsidersa team that boasts some industry veterans who have worked on Payday and Battlefield, is a first person shooter who winks at the DOOM of the new course. Our protagonist, equipped with a respectable arsenal, must scatter lead around hell, paying attention to the music that is the background to the adventure. Whether you decide to respect the metronome surrounding the viewfinder or to go by ear, any action must be performed based on the rhythm of the soundtrack, performing some final move which, while lacking the cure seen in DOOM, allows you to regain health and continue the dance of blood and death. The peculiarity of Metal Hellsinger also concerns the functioning of themusical accompaniment: These are not tracks that are looped as you play, but of dynamic instrumental parts to which are added those sung when the multiplier reaches the highest scores, so as to place the emphasis on moments of greatest frenzy.

Among other things, it is a very respectable soundtrack, since The Outsiders has focused everything on quality and not quantity: among the protagonists of Metal Hellsinger’s OST we find Serj Tankian (System of a Down), Matt Heafy ( Trivium), Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquility), Randy Blythe (Lamb of God), Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy) and Tatiana Shmailyuk (Jinjer). As if that were not enough, the splendid music is alternated with moments in which Troy Baker is the narratorprobably one of the most popular voice actors / actors in the video game industry.

There is something for everyone

From the point of view of the gunplay, Metal Hellsinger is really satisfying and, once the initial difficulties have been overcome, starting to fire in time with the music becomes an almost natural practice, to the point of not having to pay too much attention to the metronome on the screen. Even the six weapons available to the player are all fun to use and, while not many, are distinct from each other.

Between shotguns, crossbows and double revolvers, the Unknown has everything you need to challenge the leader of the underworld and the host of demons behind her. It’s really fun to start firing, then reload and keep firing with the flow of music and never interrupting the action. If in terms of gameplay this FPS hits the target,the quantity and variety of contents are disappointing. Compared to what we saw with the Metal Hellsinger preview, the final version of Metal Hellsinger offers a sufficiently varied bestiary, with new demons being introduced constantly.

It was the ones that didn’t convince us at all boss fightsince every single mission ends with a clash with the same enemy: the setting changes, the aesthetics change slightly, but it is the same opponent, who must be defeated following the same process.

The only exception is the final battle, much more choreographic and spectacular, so much so that we wonder why there was no desire to create something similar in the rest of the story. Unfortunately, even the structure of the levels is not the most complex and, although the Unknown can perform double leaps and aerial dodges, the platforming phases are completely absent and it all comes down to long corridors that alternate with arenas in which to slaughter hordes of enemies until you reach the final boss, very similar to what we saw in Rollerdrome (here the review of Rollerdrome), with which it also shares the arcade setting , the title signed The Outsiders combines excellent gameplay with content that is not sufficiently varied and that runs out quickly. Because the simple completion of the eight levels that make up the game it takes no more than three hours and unless you want to climb the online leaderboards or take on the higher challenge levels, you won’t have much else to entertain yourself with. The only alternative are i Tormentssimple challenges that unlock some upgrades for the Unknown and that don’t add much in the way of variety and longevity.

A welcoming hell

Turning to technical sector, Metal Hellsinger does his without excelling from a graphic point of view. Whether it’s the backdrops or the models, everything offers a level of detail in the average of modern productions and boasts an optimization that does not have a drop in framerate which, in a rhythm game, can compromise the whole experience. We particularly enjoyed the Artistic directionstarting with the beautiful design of the protagonist, the demons that populate hell and the settings that we will cross leaving behind a trail of corpses.

They range from ruined temples to snow-covered landscapes, passing through more traditional infernal scenarios, which could not be missing in a similar work. Speaking of aesthetic choices, we cannot fail to mention the splendid intros of the stages, which open with thetriumphal entry of the Unknown with the name of the song playing in the corner of the screen, almost as if it were the opening of a music video clip.